The gang used to take money from candidates for sending fake examinees in their place to take the 'Group D' examination for selection in the Railways, officials said.

"The gang has taken Rs 2 crore from 200 students to replace them with the solvers for the online examination," Noida STF Deputy Superintendent of Police R K Mishra said.

"The solvers have sat for these examinations multiple times at centres in Chandigarh, Patiala, Noida and Sonipat," he said, adding that each of them would get paid between Rs 30,000 and Rs 60,000 for every exam.

The UP STF had been getting information about such fraudulent practices by a gang in the railway recruitment exams as well as some other online exams.

"The STF Noida unit had got a tip-off from sources that the gang members would be coming to the Group D RRB exam centre in Sector 62 and try to get these solvers to take the exam instead of the actual candidates," Mishra said.

"The STF sleuths reached the spot and arrested the seven gang members including its mastermind around 11. 30 am," he added.

The accused were identified as Sanjeet Dahiya, Naveen Kumar, Vikrant, Sumit Kumar, Sunny Kumar, Gajendra Kumar and Subodh Kumar, the STF said in a statement.

The STF also seized three cars, cash worth Rs 4.5, 100 RRB examination admit cards of students and 85 identification documents of students, such as voter and Aadhaar cards, Mishra said.

During interrogation, Dahiya and Vikrant told the officials that they were running this business for the last few years and had been arranging solvers from among students preparing for competitive exams in Delhi's Mukherjee Nagar, the agency said.

Recently, students from Bihar had also joined them.

The STF said Vikrant had recently turned a "contractor" in this nexus and had started arranging solvers directly from Bihar. He earned a hefty commission for every solver.

"Dahiya told officials that he had completed BA from Delhi University and had started getting admissions done fraudulently in his varsity, for which he was once jailed," the statement said.

Sumit had joined the Railways as a trackman (Group D) in 2013 and is currently deployed at the Baraut station in Baghpat, the STF said.

All the accused have been booked under different sections of the IPC and provisions of the Information Technology Act, it said.

Comments

Disclaimer : We respect your thoughts and views! But we need to be judicious while moderating your comments. All the comments will be moderated by the newindianexpress.com editorial. Abstain from posting comments that are obscene, defamatory or inflammatory, and do not indulge in personal attacks. Try to avoid outside hyperlinks inside the comment. Help us delete comments that do not follow these guidelines.

The views expressed in comments published on newindianexpress.com are those of the comment writers alone. They do not represent the views or opinions of newindianexpress.com or its staff, nor do they represent the views or opinions of The New Indian Express Group, or any entity of, or affiliated with, The New Indian Express Group. newindianexpress.com reserves the right to take any or all comments down at any time.